Our country's democratic values could be under threat if President Obama fast tracks the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

On critical issues, the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being negotiated in secret by the Obama administration will undermine democracy in the United States and around the world and further empower transnational corporations. It will circumvent protections for health care, wages, labor rights, consumers' rights and the environment, and decrease regulation of big finance and risky investment practices.

The only way this treaty, which will be very unpopular with the American people once they are aware of it, can be approved is if the Obama administration avoids the democratic process by using an authority known as "Fast Track," which limits the constitutional checks and balances of Congress. If the TPP is approved, the sovereignty of the United States and other member nations will be dissipated by trade tribunals that favor corporate power and force national laws to be subservient to corporate interests.

Circumventing the Checks and Balances of US Democracy

President Nixon first developed the idea of "Fast Track" in 1973 as a way to secure Congressional approval of trade agreements, and it has been a key to passing many unpopular agreements such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and NAFTA. As people have caught on to the offshoring of jobs and other detrimental consequences of these agreements, civil society now understands how important it is to not allow a president to circumvent the democratic role of Congress. Fast Track expired in 2007, so President Obama must have it re-instated in order to pass the TPP. His administration is moving to have Fast Track approved and hopes it will happen by this summer....MORE
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2013/03/31/transpacific-partnership-will-undermine-

"If this were going to benefit poor and working people in other countries, it might be ethically a step forward. However, "free trade" generally helps the rich and hurts the rest, by undermining democracy.

Another screw in the TPP: no more "buy American" requirements in government contracts...."

Bye Buy America and Jobs
Under TPP, Buy America and other buy-local preferences are banned

The TPP’s procurement chapter would require that all firms operating in any signatory country be provided equal access as domestic firms to U.S. government procurement contracts over a certain dollar threshold. To implement this “national treatment” requirement, the U.S. would agree to waive Buy America procurement policies for all of the firms operating in the TPP countries...

Some corporate TPP proponents argue that this is good for America because these rules would apply to all signatory countries, so U.S. firms would be able to bid on procurements contracts in other countries on a national treatment basis. The notion that new access for some U.S. companies to bid on contracts in the TPP countries is a good trade-off for waiving Buy America preferences on U.S. procurement is ridiculous: Taking even the most favorable cut on other countries’ markets, the total U.S. procurement market is more than seven times the size of the combined procurement market of the current TPP negotiating parties: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5414

People that say the war on drugs is a failure haven't thought it through.

It was/is one of the Biggest Successes of ANY government program of any time in history.

Think about it-some of the most corrupt people in existence talking about the "morality" of using Cannabis or Cocaine? And if that wasn't enough-- convince them that natural plants and powders are dangerous enough to give up their rights for? Wow. Chutzpa.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Law Enforcement has recordings of everyone that has been to a hydro store in that state ever since they could convince the feds to grant them more money and install them.

a world of constant surveillance by people that want more and more secrecy. It's .... hard to watch. Every last movement recorded somewhere accessible to anyone with the right password.

Will he be held accountable for arresting single payer advocate doctors and nurses at a hearing?

Probably not

Barack Obama appeared this week with health-industry bigwigs, proclaiming light at the end of the health-care tunnel. Among those gathered were executives from HMO giants Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Health Net Inc., and the health-insurance lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans; from the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association; from medical-device companies; and from the pharmaceutical industry, including the president and CEO of Merck and former Rep. Billy Tauzin, now president and CEO of PhRMA, the massive industry lobbying group. They have pledged to voluntarily shave some $2 trillion off of U.S. health-care costs over 10 years. But these groups, which are heavily invested in the U.S. health-care status quo, have little incentive to actually make good on their promises.